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1) The draw play has always been an essential part of our game-plan against Indy. My question here is why do we keep using it, and why are we often successful with it? The answer here is the draw concept exploits the main weakness in the tampa 2, along with exploiting the dependency of the tampa 2 on speed over size. On the draw plays that were successful, our OL was consistently getting over to second tier blocking, stoning the LB corp and creating avenues for Faulk. I am excited to see what role Hernandez will have in this, in terms of spelling Faulk.
2) I am envisioning a matchup nightmare with Gronk in the mix. The Colts at present do not have anyone who matches up anywhere near the physical assets that Gronk brings to the field. I would not be surprised to see Gronk have a 10/100 type of day, if he works the seams which is the other flaw in the tampa 2 because the safety has to run up to contain it out of zone schemes.
3) We need to have more misdirection plays that force overrunning. Once the Colts D get caught in overpursue, they're much more likely to break down. I think that what really works is playing out of a formation that allows us to option to draw or screen pass with a minimum of motion especially when Welker lines up right in the CB/LB gap in the tampa 2, to force the safety to "commit" even though he cannot press as he is in zone by default.
4) I believe a big part of our defensive failures was underestimating how well Manning plays the slant game. It was almost as if we went in there expecting him to resort to the slant at some point, but not expecting how well he executes it. That was a great learning experience for the backfield. I am confident that our D will be much more on their toes next time around. One thing I noticed was Manning going to the sluggo slant and go, time and again. This kept them in the game.
5) Late in the game when Butler was put in the game over Wilhite, Manning jumped all over that and abused him for four gains in a row, leading up to the Addai TD. Nothing wrong with Butler's technique. He just has to understand he's playing in the NFL where QB's can thread the eye of a needle with a football any time of the day. We were in nickel at the time and this is where Chung's inexperience really flared out- Manning is very meticulous, very planned and very prepared, but one thing he is not, is imaginative or improvisational. If he sees something that works, he will keep resorting to it. So when you see a thing done twice in a row, count on it happening again, next time, and Chung should have resorted to an old vet's trick: spy on his own CB, because when a QB is exploiting a CB he believes is inexperienced, he is going to key off what signs he gives in coverage and Chung should have read off Butler and cheated accordingly.
6) I personally think we lost the game with that errant timeout. We had the wrong personnel on the field and I think we should have switched out of the draw immediately because they were looking for it right off the bat. Faulk gets neutralized, next play fake draw to short welker post, good for 8 yards gain. Next two plays were great pressure plays with full press. Not going to go into details over that because it's already been discussed to death here.
It will be exciting to see what happens this season. Our defense is older and wiser, having been baptized by the top QB's in the game (e.g. Brees), so they are most likely to follow their instructions to the letter this time around. I am also hoping they are going to be allowed to be much more aggressive, because I believe that is when they are at their best, when they have that swagger going. They are a hard-hitting (even more now) and physical corp, and for them to play conservative, or with a buffer, is to take away from their identity.
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1) The draw play has always been an essential part of our game-plan against Indy. My question here is why do we keep using it, and why are we often successful with it? The answer here is the draw concept exploits the main weakness in the tampa 2, along with exploiting the dependency of the tampa 2 on speed over size. On the draw plays that were successful, our OL was consistently getting over to second tier blocking, stoning the LB corp and creating avenues for Faulk. I am excited to see what role Hernandez will have in this, in terms of spelling Faulk.
2) I am envisioning a matchup nightmare with Gronk in the mix. The Colts at present do not have anyone who matches up anywhere near the physical assets that Gronk brings to the field. I would not be surprised to see Gronk have a 10/100 type of day, if he works the seams which is the other flaw in the tampa 2 because the safety has to run up to contain it out of zone schemes.
3) We need to have more misdirection plays that force overrunning. Once the Colts D get caught in overpursue, they're much more likely to break down. I think that what really works is playing out of a formation that allows us to option to draw or screen pass with a minimum of motion especially when Welker lines up right in the CB/LB gap in the tampa 2, to force the safety to "commit" even though he cannot press as he is in zone by default.
4) I believe a big part of our defensive failures was underestimating how well Manning plays the slant game. It was almost as if we went in there expecting him to resort to the slant at some point, but not expecting how well he executes it. That was a great learning experience for the backfield. I am confident that our D will be much more on their toes next time around. One thing I noticed was Manning going to the sluggo slant and go, time and again. This kept them in the game.
5) Late in the game when Butler was put in the game over Wilhite, Manning jumped all over that and abused him for four gains in a row, leading up to the Addai TD. Nothing wrong with Butler's technique. He just has to understand he's playing in the NFL where QB's can thread the eye of a needle with a football any time of the day. We were in nickel at the time and this is where Chung's inexperience really flared out- Manning is very meticulous, very planned and very prepared, but one thing he is not, is imaginative or improvisational. If he sees something that works, he will keep resorting to it. So when you see a thing done twice in a row, count on it happening again, next time, and Chung should have resorted to an old vet's trick: spy on his own CB, because when a QB is exploiting a CB he believes is inexperienced, he is going to key off what signs he gives in coverage and Chung should have read off Butler and cheated accordingly.
6) I personally think we lost the game with that errant timeout. We had the wrong personnel on the field and I think we should have switched out of the draw immediately because they were looking for it right off the bat. Faulk gets neutralized, next play fake draw to short welker post, good for 8 yards gain. Next two plays were great pressure plays with full press. Not going to go into details over that because it's already been discussed to death here.
It will be exciting to see what happens this season. Our defense is older and wiser, having been baptized by the top QB's in the game (e.g. Brees), so they are most likely to follow their instructions to the letter this time around. I am also hoping they are going to be allowed to be much more aggressive, because I believe that is when they are at their best, when they have that swagger going. They are a hard-hitting (even more now) and physical corp, and for them to play conservative, or with a buffer, is to take away from their identity.
There were many reasons the Pats lost that game. And I hate to use this excuse, cause we jump on other teams fans when they use it, but the main reason we lost that game was the absolute horrendous PI call the refs made on Butler late in the 4th. That call was huge. It essentially gave the Colts 40 yards on a single play which could have taken several for them to get otherwise. It helped the Colts get the game to within a TD before the 2 minute warning. Which altered the rest of the way the game was played. If the call was made correctly, the Colts would have had to used a T.O. or two and it would have changed the way the Pats played the last series they had the ball.
There were many reasons the Pats lost that game. And I hate to use this excuse, cause we jump on other teams fans when they use it, but the main reason we lost that game was the absolute horrendous PI call the refs made on Butler late in the 4th. That call was huge. It essentially gave the Colts 40 yards on a single play which could have taken several for them to get otherwise. It helped the Colts get the game to within a TD before the 2 minute warning. Which altered the rest of the way the game was played. If the call was made correctly, the Colts would have had to used a T.O. or two and it would have changed the way the Pats played the last series they had the ball.
That PI call was why the 4th down play was the right call. What good was punting going to do when the refs were just going to give the Colts 40 yards on a bogus PI call anyway? They did make the 1st down on that play as well. I am sooo glad the Colts lost the SB after the cheap way they played the end of the season. I felt the league should have sent them to Foxboro for the last game of the year this season and see if the rest going into the playoffs.
Tully's injury and Burgess tuckering out didn't help the cause either. Their rush really protected the backfield from getting picked apart in the first half.
Your analysis really gives me a some hope. That the secondary has the talent, it just needs seasoning.
7) After the first half, when the Colts were on offense they managed to get a lineman up field to put a body on Mayo while double teaming Wilfork at the same time. It didn't always happen (based on what I saw from just watching the regular game as opposed to the coach's tape), but it happened more often than not and took away a dangerous presence in the middle of our defense. Doing so helped the Colts tremendously in both the run and passing game.
8) Stephen Neal exiting the game in the third quarter almost single handedly helped the Colts defense stop some drives. Kaczur was already struggling against Mathis one on one, but had some help from Neal through the first three quarters. When Connolly came in, Mathis abused Kaczur one on one and abused both Kaczur and Connolly (who was not able to put a body on Mathis as quickly and effectively as Neal was). The result was Mathis getting in Brady's face much more quickly than he had in the previous quarters.
And we can go over this and beat a dead horse again. But I still feel that going for it on 4th down was a bad call. For one, the third down call should have been a run. For another, the defense hadn't totally yielded a drive to the Colts on the posession before. 40 yards of that so called "drive" came off of a bogus pass interference call which only saw Butler bump into Collie because he was making a play for he ball. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the defense was "gassed". I only see that getting repeated time and time again on here because Cris Collinsworth said it. The defense had held that potent offense to 21 points before that. They should have been given the opportunity to defend the long field against Manning. For a third reason why going for it was a bad idea: we burned two timeouts in a costly manner. Taking such a chance without the use of timeouts to challenge a potentially iffy call (such as ball position) was a bad move. Of course, I fully expect somebody to come on here and make the weak argument about how statstics favored that call (as if football was just a simple game of mathematics). In that case, the only statistic I would be interested in was the Patriots 4th down conversion success rate for the year of 2009.
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1) The draw play has always been an essential part of our game-plan against Indy. My question here is why do we keep using it, and why are we often successful with it? The answer here is the draw concept exploits the main weakness in the tampa 2, along with exploiting the dependency of the tampa 2 on speed over size. On the draw plays that were successful, our OL was consistently getting over to second tier blocking, stoning the LB corp and creating avenues for Faulk. I am excited to see what role Hernandez will have in this, in terms of spelling Faulk.
2) I am envisioning a matchup nightmare with Gronk in the mix. The Colts at present do not have anyone who matches up anywhere near the physical assets that Gronk brings to the field. I would not be surprised to see Gronk have a 10/100 type of day, if he works the seams which is the other flaw in the tampa 2 because the safety has to run up to contain it out of zone schemes.
3) We need to have more misdirection plays that force overrunning. Once the Colts D get caught in overpursue, they're much more likely to break down. I think that what really works is playing out of a formation that allows us to option to draw or screen pass with a minimum of motion especially when Welker lines up right in the CB/LB gap in the tampa 2, to force the safety to "commit" even though he cannot press as he is in zone by default.
4) I believe a big part of our defensive failures was underestimating how well Manning plays the slant game. It was almost as if we went in there expecting him to resort to the slant at some point, but not expecting how well he executes it. That was a great learning experience for the backfield. I am confident that our D will be much more on their toes next time around. One thing I noticed was Manning going to the sluggo slant and go, time and again. This kept them in the game.
5) Late in the game when Butler was put in the game over Wilhite, Manning jumped all over that and abused him for four gains in a row, leading up to the Addai TD. Nothing wrong with Butler's technique. He just has to understand he's playing in the NFL where QB's can thread the eye of a needle with a football any time of the day. We were in nickel at the time and this is where Chung's inexperience really flared out- Manning is very meticulous, very planned and very prepared, but one thing he is not, is imaginative or improvisational. If he sees something that works, he will keep resorting to it. So when you see a thing done twice in a row, count on it happening again, next time, and Chung should have resorted to an old vet's trick: spy on his own CB, because when a QB is exploiting a CB he believes is inexperienced, he is going to key off what signs he gives in coverage and Chung should have read off Butler and cheated accordingly.
6) I personally think we lost the game with that errant timeout. We had the wrong personnel on the field and I think we should have switched out of the draw immediately because they were looking for it right off the bat. Faulk gets neutralized, next play fake draw to short welker post, good for 8 yards gain. Next two plays were great pressure plays with full press. Not going to go into details over that because it's already been discussed to death here.
It will be exciting to see what happens this season. Our defense is older and wiser, having been baptized by the top QB's in the game (e.g. Brees), so they are most likely to follow their instructions to the letter this time around. I am also hoping they are going to be allowed to be much more aggressive, because I believe that is when they are at their best, when they have that swagger going. They are a hard-hitting (even more now) and physical corp, and for them to play conservative, or with a buffer, is to take away from their identity.
Nice analysis; I esp. agree with your 3rd point: our offense needs to better take advantage of the dolts' tendency to over-persue on defense. And it shouldn't be afraid to shove the ball right down their panty-waisted throats on 3rd/2 and 4th/2, either.
There were many reasons the Pats lost that game. And I hate to use this excuse, cause we jump on other teams fans when they use it, but the main reason we lost that game was the absolute horrendous PI call the refs made on Butler late in the 4th. That call was huge. It essentially gave the Colts 40 yards on a single play which could have taken several for them to get otherwise. It helped the Colts get the game to within a TD before the 2 minute warning. Which altered the rest of the way the game was played. If the call was made correctly, the Colts would have had to used a T.O. or two and it would have changed the way the Pats played the last series they had the ball.
That criminal call still pisses me off. Butler had position on Collie, and was attempting to catch the ball. Where the F was the damn PI, you filthy rotten cowardly thieving zebras?!?
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Last edited by captain stone; 05-23-2010 at 08:20 PM..
So I guess what you're trying to say is that you won't be watching this one?
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7) After the first half, when the Colts were on offense they managed to get a lineman up field to put a body on Mayo while double teaming Wilfork at the same time. It didn't always happen (based on what I saw from just watching the regular game as opposed to the coach's tape), but it happened more often than not and took away a dangerous presence in the middle of our defense. Doing so helped the Colts tremendously in both the run and passing game.
8) Stephen Neal exiting the game in the third quarter almost single handedly helped the Colts defense stop some drives. Kaczur was already struggling against Mathis one on one, but had some help from Neal through the first three quarters. When Connolly came in, Mathis abused Kaczur one on one and abused both Kaczur and Connolly (who was not able to put a body on Mathis as quickly and effectively as Neal was). The result was Mathis getting in Brady's face much more quickly than he had in the previous quarters.
And we can go over this and beat a dead horse again. But I still feel that going for it on 4th down was a bad call. For one, the third down call should have been a run. For another, the defense hadn't totally yielded a drive to the Colts on the posession before. 40 yards of that so called "drive" came off of a bogus pass interference call which only saw Butler bump into Collie because he was making a play for he ball. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the defense was "gassed". I only see that getting repeated time and time again on here because Cris Collinsworth said it. The defense had held that potent offense to 21 points before that. They should have been given the opportunity to defend the long field against Manning. For a third reason why going for it was a bad idea: we burned two timeouts in a costly manner. Taking such a chance without the use of timeouts to challenge a potentially iffy call (such as ball position) was a bad move. Of course, I fully expect somebody to come on here and make the weak argument about how statstics favored that call (as if football was just a simple game of mathematics). In that case, the only statistic I would be interested in was the Patriots 4th down conversion success rate for the year of 2009.
I agree with everything you've written, most esp. the bolded part. That 3rd-down call was abominable, and nearly intercepted. And on 4th down, Welker was open on the slant, but Brady was locked into Faulk, who needed to run one more damn yard downfield.
NFLN: NE vs. Indy replay
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